Darla Peterson’s life is a mess. She works dead-end jobs, her latest startup, Kitty Kaskets, has flopped, and now she owes the IRS $349,000. Desperate for a way out, Darla (Alex E. Harris) discovers an unlikely savior: Mother. Not her own mother, but a sentient blob of kombucha SCOBY (voiced by JS Oliver) that she finds stashed in a storage crate at her boss’s office. Mother has one goal — to go to space — and she offers Darla a partnership. In exchange for helping Mother become an astronaut, Mother will grant euphoria-inducing orgasms to paying customers. Are you following?
If Darla in Space sounds like a gauzy fever dream, that’s because it very much is. Similar to Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe’s bonkers Greener Grass, Eric Laplante and Susie Moon’s feature debut thrives by treating absurd situations with utter seriousness. Darla approaches her orgasm-for-cash scheme as though it’s just another gig economy hustle, throwing herself into bizarre marketing stunts and negotiating with eccentric clients. The film’s humor lies in the deadpan sincerity of it all: no one questions the logic of a kombucha blob providing cosmic pleasure, but instead just jump in the pool and let Mother do her thing.
The wonky core of Darla in Space lies in the relationship between Darla and Mother, which is built on mutual need and shared delusion. While Darla is ostensibly the one in control, exploiting Mother’s sexual talents to get out of her dire financial straits, there’s a subtle reversal at play. Mother’s single-minded obsession with space travel makes her just as much of a driver of the action as Darla, adding complexity to what could have been a one-note dynamic.
The film leans with unapologetic zeal into its absurdist humor, with standout sequences that feel simultaneously ridiculous and meaningful. Montages of euphoric orgasmic experiences, captured via whimsical, lo-fi visuals, offer some of the film’s funniest moments, while hinting at Darla’s search for something beyond financial freedom. Also like the DeBoer and Luebbe film, which draws humor from the inanity of enforced social norms, Darla in Space locates its central comedy in the strange ways people pursue connection, pleasure, and meaning.
If the comparison to Greener Grass didn’t already make it obvious, Darla in Space is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work by any conventional standard — and won’t for a large swath of potential viewers. But for those willing to embrace the fundamental absurdity of its designs, the film offers the kind of surprising viewing experience that is all too rare in the current cinematic landscape of thrice-baked IP, largely on the strength of an emphatic commitment to weirdness and outrageous conceptual gags that is also balanced by moments of surprising emotional depth and nuance. If you can embrace the preposterous, Darla in Space delivers a an experience both hilarious and genuinely heartfelt, as unique as it is strange. And if not? Well, maybe it’s time to let a SCOBY teach you how to dream big.
DIRECTOR: Eric Laplante & Susie Moon; CAST: Alex E. Harris, JS Oliver, Constance Shulman, Thomas Jay Ryan; DISTRIBUTOR: Freestyle Digital Media; IN THEATERS: September 27; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 34 min.
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